Woe for Entourage and PDA users!

OS X 10.4 includes developer tools for syncing their applications' data with other application, devices and other Macs via .Mac. On the one hand, this is good, because it means Entourage will sync automatically with Address Book and iCal, so you'll no longer have to rely on Paul's excellent AppleScripts to keep them in check (e2sync, the main alternative to those scripts, is awful so don't bother even trying it). But it's also very bad because it looks like Microsoft is planning to phase out its Palm sync conduit for Entourage and force us to rely on Apple's iSync conduit. This is very bad.

Entourage's conduit has never been great and has languished in Microsoft's Mac Business Unit's list of priorities for some time. It hasn't been able to synchronise the categories of calendar events, for example, even though Palm's own free, archaic Palm Desktop has been able to since Palm modified it for OS X four years ago. Even when numerous bugs have been pointed out, nothing's been done to fix them. The conduit's also liable to delete data if you use it with Palm OS 5 devices, unless you're very careful about how you use them - this despite the conduit having been out for over a year now, MS's excuse being OS 5 devices were new at the time of Office 2004's release and it didn't have time to rewrite the conduit for them in time.

But it's better than Apple's iSync conduit for Palm devices. This is just awful. It doesn't synchronise categories for any of the Palm device's events, contacts or tasks, for example and skips a load of data. Apple knows about this and has known since it released it on the public in 2001, but has chosen not to do anything about it either. iSync's a nice idea but it does need to be updated and Apple's a bit ADHD when it comes to paying attention to long-running system requirements, with development teams much preferring to play around with whatever's new and shiny rather than dull stuff like drivers and sync conduits.

Basically, it looks like one step forwards, two steps back for Entourage users with Palm devices. Still, there is some hope. Mark/Space, which develops Missing Sync for Palm OS, says it's been looking at the idea of developing its own Entourage conduit for Palm OS devices. The sorry state of Microsoft's own conduit, the rubbishness of Apple's conduit and the overwhelming bugginess of the only alternatives, the conduits available from QueueSync, has long-provoked howls of dismay from dissatisfied users and Mark/Space see an opportunity.

Since Mark/Space already has developed syncing tech for Entourage and Pocket PC devices for Missing Sync for Pocket PC and has its own Palm OS Avant Go and Memo Pad conduits, it shouldn't be difficult, I hope, for it to come up with alternatives to the Apple and MS conduits. At the very least, they'd be excellent reasons to buy Missing Sync, already an excellent product, if they worked. Certainly, the idea of having to use iSync for Palm syncing makes many an Entourage user wail and gnash their teeth. Fingers crossed everyone.